Alive on This Earth - Mac macartney at awake in the world, london, 2013

Some of you may recall a film made about 15 years ago about the Kogi Indians of Columbia. They’ve closed the door in their society; we're not welcome and in this way they have protected themselves, their culture, and their traditions. And I’m hoping that in a couple of months I’m going to go and visit a group of their Mamas, or the shamans. Now, one of the traditions held within the Kogi is that when a woman becomes pregnant, the Mamas gather around and they, they sense, intuit, whether the child, held and incubated by that woman is a Mama and will become one of the shamans of the people. And when it is sensed that this is so, that child is, the mother is taken to this cave and she gives birth to the child in that cave and that child never leaves the cave for nine years and is held in the darkness; not complete darkness – enough light so that eyes can develop and form naturally, but he’s held in that darkness. He’s fed even pale food, and is taught, all the time, for 9 years, in the spiritual teachings of the Kogi. And some point or other around about that ninth year, very slowly, incrementally, step by step, they are led out of the cave to the cave mouth, and out into life. This is in a region where, you know, the sounds of song, song birds, the, the whole life is erupting in a tropical or semi-tropical manner. It is a complete cacophony of life growing. They say that the children never recover from this experience, in the sense that they are so deeply overwhelmed by beauty, by what comes to them in color, in sound, in form, in every avenue, the vitality and fecundity and glorious just symphony of life, that they never, ever recover. And forever walk amongst their people speaking the joy of what it means to be alive on this earth, as she is: beautiful.